Plenty of interesting games over the next two days. Philly clinches the Atlantic at home tonight with a win over the Islanders. Montreal and Buffalo each in action tonight to see who plays Boston or Philly. Personally, despite Philly's sick depth, I'd rather play them because of their questions in net. Buffalo wants retribution at Boston from last season.

Crucial game for SJ tonight. They want home ice against Detroit in the probable second round matchup, though none of the West teams are easy outs. Chicago can lock up the final spot by beating Detroit, and could hypothetically move up to 6 I believe. I don't know the head-to-head records, but there's a three-way tie in regulation/OT wins.

Crazy tiebreaker scenarios.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Want to see that Boston/Montreal series badly. Be cheering for the Lightning tonight as well ... as much as it flies in the face of my usual take on big market and NY teams, I wanna see the Rangers get in to play the Caps. Flyers/Sabres would be my a matchup between my favorite and least favorite teams on the East side ... so I wanna see that as well. F Philly.

Ducks and Blackhawks (if they get in) are two dangerous low seeds in the West that could go all the way, and present dangerous 1st rd series for Van/Det/SJ. Don't think the Kings have enough offense. Yotes/Preds would be an interesting series between teams of contrasting styles.

Can't wait to see how it plays out.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

swerb wrote:Want to see that Boston/Montreal series badly. Be cheering for the Lightning tonight as well ... as much as it flies in the face of my usual take on big market and NY teams, I wanna see the Rangers get in to play the Caps. Flyers/Sabres would be my a matchup between my favorite and least favorite teams on the East side ... so I wanna see that as well. F Philly.

Yep, no problems with that. I'd like Buffalo's chances against PHI over against BOS.

Ducks and Blackhawks (if they get in) are two dangerous low seeds in the West that could go all the way, and present dangerous 1st rd series for Van/Det/SJ. Don't think the Kings have enough offense. Yotes/Preds would be an interesting series between teams of contrasting styles.

Can't wait to see how it plays out.

Nobody wants to play either team. Kopitar's injury cripples what the Kings can do. Still a good team, a team that will give you a long series, but they won't win one I don't think.

Yotes/Preds, bet the under. Every game. Would be a real grind it out series. I think NSH has more skill, and Rinne has been unbelievable this year. I'd take NSH in a long, hard fought, seven game series with maybe 30 goals combined over the 7 games.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Mike Fisher has a big night after disappointing since coming over to Nashville in the trade. Rinne and Suter and Weber were awesome.

Alex Semin with a howitzer in OT to give the Caps a 1-0 lead.

Fleury, Luongo pitch shutouts for the Pens and Nucks. And the defensive play in front of them, my god. First 10 min of the game, Vancouver looked scary good. Hit after hit, a quick 2-0 lead. Gonna take a Herculean effort to beat them four times in a series.

Thank you, sir. I had it done yesterday before the first games, but I think Peeks thought I just had it done early for my weekly Thursday piece. No biggie.

Semin's shot was unreal. Across his body, fading away from the net. Jason Arnott + Marc Staal's fatigue made that play.

The NHL playoffs are about depth. Saw that last night. Everybody but three guys had a shot on goal for the Wings last night, and two were strictly defensive defensemen. The Rangers didn't play all 6 D evenly like the Caps did, Staal makes a fatigue-induced turnover to lead to the GWG. Nashville's depth showed last night. Corey Perry with the -3.

I'm shocked that Anaheim went with Ellis. That won't happen again in Game 2.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Manly effort from Carey Price. Great job by Montreal shutting down Boston's top line and to their D for getting in front of a lot of shots. Boston controlled the puck and the tempo, and got shut the F out. Complete with a Chara cheap shot at the end. Wanted to see someone light him up when he got outta the box w 45 seconds left.

Habs are taking this series and making a serious run.

And the Sabres lead 1-0. Opening game losses for my two least favorite hockey teams would make for a helluva night 2 of the playoffs.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

Rangers stay alive. Rangers get a crazy goal with 1:30 left to break a 2-2 tie. I think Dubinsky's 'stache willed that thing in. Both Neuvirth and Lundqvist have been great in this series, as has the defensive play. Neuvirth keeps playing like this, Caps are gonna be a really, really tough out. Rangers now with a chance to make this a series Tues night in game 4.

Mike Fisher strikes again. Preds take a huge 2-1 series lead over the Ducks. Brutal break for the Ducks losing Ryan for two games. He coulda been the difference today.

Blackhawks had a chance to net 2-3 goals with all the Canuck penalties in the 1st. Only were able to light it once. See if they can step up, finish this game, and stay alive. All those must win games down the stretch, they didn't look too inspired. See what they got here ...

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

Cerebral_DownTime wrote:I love me some Raffi Torres hits. Fuck the Blackhawks. Canucks just beating them all over the ice.

I'd give him 10 games for that. At least. Blatant lack of respect for a fellow player. Completely pre-meditated. Should have gotten 5 + game for charging to begin with. His first game back off a suspension, where he said he wouldn't change his game, and we saw who he really is tonight. He was a hack with the Jackets and he's a hack with the Canucks.

Somebody has to protect these players from blindside hits. That somebody is Colin Campbell. Too many concussions. I think they'll launch an investigation in to the Blackhawks because Seabrook shouldn't have come back in the game, but he had to because Chicago's season ended with a loss last night.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Cerebral_DownTime wrote:I love me some Raffi Torres hits. Fuck the Blackhawks. Canucks just beating them all over the ice.

I'd give him 10 games for that. At least. Blatant lack of respect for a fellow player. Completely pre-meditated. Should have gotten 5 + game for charging to begin with. His first game back off a suspension, where he said he wouldn't change his game, and we saw who he really is tonight. He was a hack with the Jackets and he's a hack with the Canucks.

Somebody has to protect these players from blindside hits. That somebody is Colin Campbell. Too many concussions. I think they'll launch an investigation in to the Blackhawks because Seabrook shouldn't have come back in the game, but he had to because Chicago's season ended with a loss last night.

Heard Quenneville's post game presser on the way in this morning ... he was pissed.

Like him or not, Torres had an impact last night. As did Samuelson, both the guys they were missing in games 1 and 2.

Vancouver is a really good team.

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

Watching it for about the 20th time, 5 for charging would be wrong. Torres never took more than two strides to make the check.

Here's the thing. The NHL wants to eliminate "blindside hits", which this clearly was. There was a DVD sent out in March of last year about how players needed to be more responsible for themselves behind the net. Clearly, the NHL determined this to be a hockey play.

My issue is that it's a blindside hit on a player without the puck. Seabrook was turned, looking for the puck, and therefore prone to the hit. It was not like he had the puck, released it, and watched his pass a la the Paul Kariya hit back in 2003.

I just don't want to see supplemental discipline for whichever Hawk player takes liberties with Torres in Game 4. Because, the message that the NHL sent with this hit is for the teams to police it themselves.

If they want to eliminate these blindside shots to the head, it has to start with plays like that.

It's only a matter of time until we get one of these:

For what it's worth, Fanelli had a fractured skull.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

peeker643 wrote:Watched the 1st period of Kings/Sharks last night. Kings score late in 1st for a 3-0 lead, could have probably scored 5 with any luck.

Then they score to make it 4-0 a minute into the 2nd.

I wake up to see they lost 6-5 in OT after SJ scored 5 in 2nd? In LA? In a pivotal Game 3?

Holy shit. Talk about a kick to the junk.

All I saw of that game was the box score and then the OT game winner. What a pass by Marleau.

One thing that the Kings lack is veteran leadership. They only have maybe one or two guys who can really talk in the locker room. There was nobody to stop that slide yesterday. Vets are big at this stage.

Doesn't help that Drew Doughty was a team worst -3. Faceoffs, too. Sharks won 39 of 64. Won't win many games that way.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

swerb wrote:Caps finish off the Rangers. Neuvirth has looked great, as has the Caps D in front of him. They are the clear favorites in the East to me.

Mike Green is an enormous loss if he has another concussion. They'll take supreme caution with him and he won't play again this year. Without him, they're very limited on puck movers on D. If they run in to a very good forechecking team, it's a bad matchup.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Gotta go with Montreal. Thomas is overplaying everything and his angle play is poor. Boston uses their defensemen in the offensive zone more than any other team I've seen. At some point, that's going to lead to an odd man rush that MTL cashes in.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Both goalies have been outstanding. Subban has logged an insane amount of ice time (and lots of boos from the Boston crowd) for Montreal, Eller has been very productive in his minutes. Gill and Hamrlik have been solid. Seidenberg and Marchand have been great for Boston. Off to OT ...

"It's like dating a woman who hates you so much she will never break up with you, even if you burn down the house every single autumn." ~ Chuck Klosterman on Browns fans relationship with the Browns

Both goalies have been outstanding. Subban has logged an insane amount of ice time (and lots of boos from the Boston crowd) for Montreal, Eller has been very productive in his minutes. Gill and Hamrlik have been solid. Seidenberg and Marchand have been great for Boston. Off to OT ...

I know fatigue plays a part but I wonder if the ice is effed up in Boston. Guys are having a tough time controlling the puck and there have been a lot of giveaways.